Announcements

Uwe Kruger and Xavier Intes have been awarded an NIH R21 grant focusing on "artificial intelligence enhanced cancer cell classification based organelle morphology and topology". This is a two-year grant with a budget of over $450k. The work is done in collaboration with Albany Medical Center, where Margarida Barroso serves as the PI. Dr. Kruger is the PI for RPI and Dr.

Deepak Vashishth has been awarded an NIH R01 grant on the topic, "Effect of Advanced Glycation Endproducts on Type 2 Diabetic and Fragility Fracture." This is a 5 year grant with a budget of $4M. The project will use in vitro biochemical models, preclinical modes of obese and non-obese T2D and human data from NIA's Health ABC study to find and establish a new biomarker of T2D fracture that captures the effects of both hyperglycemia and oxidative stress in bone.

Biomedical Engineering professor and CBIS director Dr. Deepak Vashishth has been named the Yamada Corporation Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The endowed professorship recognizes an exceptional faculty member who is committed to excellence in engineering education and who inspires others to achieve their personal best. The prestigious Yamada Corporation Professorship is one of the highest honors bestowed on a Rensselaer faculty member. 

Sabrina Kosnik, a PhD student in Deepak Vashishth's group, has been selected to receive the ASBMR Young Investigator Award. Her award is for her abstract presentation "Gut Dysbiosis and Loss of Bone Quality Associated with Neurodegeneration in the 5xFAD Mouse Model for Alzheimer's Disease."

Tyree Williams, a 4th year PhD student participating in a translational research bridge program at Sinai BioDesign at the Icahn school of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has won the Mount Sinai Innovation Partners 2022 Pitch Challenge.

Dr. Ge Wang has been selected as the recipient of Sigma Xi's Walston Chubb Award for Innovation. Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, is the international honor society of science and engineering. One of the oldest and largest scientific organizations in the world, Sigma Xi has a distinguished history of service to science and society for more than one hundred and twenty five years.

The Rensselaer Board of Trustees has approved Leo Wan's promotion to the rank of Professor.  He joined the Biomedical Engineering Department at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as an assistant professor in 2011 and became an associate professor in 2016. He received both B.S. and M. Eng. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University, where he became a post-doc on stem cells and tissue engineering.

Fenglei Fan, a 2021 doctoral graduate of Dr. Ge Wang's lab, has been selected as the recipient for the 2021 International Neural Network Society Doctoral Dissertation Award.

The Doctoral Dissertation Award is presented annually to the author(s) of the best doctoral dissertation(s) in neural networks, machine learning, and related fields by INNS members in recognition of his/her high-quality, excellent, and outstanding research work. INNS established the program to recognize and encourage doctoral candidates in computer science and engineering among its members.